Spoilers TF: Revelation and Dust by DRGIII Review Thread

[DS9Continuing]

I just listened to Trek.fm's TrekLit podcast featuring an interview with DRG3 regarding R&D. It was actually quite informative and gave me a couple of new perspectives to think about.

It's available here - http://trek.fm/literary-treks/

Basically, he said that the assassination of Bacco was their analogy to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the event that is popularly blamed for beginning World War I. The story they wanted to tell was one about how the people react when faced with such a public and high-profile death. Comparisons to Kennedy and 9/11 were also made.

Regarding Kira's storyline, which I had my problems with myself, he said he had several goals. The replay of "Emissary" wasn't just for the sake of it but to honour DS9's 20th anniversary by referencing where it all began. But also, it wasn't just a pure replay because the Prophets were trying to impart some information to Kira by showing her that. (Not entirely sure what that information is yet - reread required.)

A connection was also made between what Sisko went through in "Emissary" - a very personal loss and the question of how to get past it - with the very public loss the Federation is now facing. Perhaps the Prophets showed Kira the story of Sisko coming to terms with his loss so that she could then use that to help the rest of the Federation deal with theirs.

I thought that was a fine place to leave Yevir's story. I don't feel like it's aching for a follow-up. Cool to see if he ever does appear, sure, but I'm not upset.

That's my thought too. His arc was growing from a character of religious intolerance to one of religious tolerance. There's no better place for him to go than where he went; even becoming Kai would seem to be a step backward considering I think that's what he wanted in the beginning anyway.

I found a use for him in my DS9 Season 10 stuff, if anyone cares.

Spoiler: DS9 Season 10 - pro writers no clicky

I had him return to Bajor and take over the Oralian temple in Janir after the death of Ekosha. Basically, he went from trying to ban an alternative religion to becoming the representative of one.

.

 

[Paper Moon]

The assassination of President Bacco did not feel as disastrous as I would’ve expected. The attempt on her life in Silent Weapons

Spoiler: Silent Weapons; code added by Sci

and the death of Piñiero in the same

felt much more vivid. I will say that I shall be disappointed if we don’t get a damn good story in the wake of her death; such a character’s loss should reap some benefit for the reader.

I'm honestly surprised to hear that reaction, because, to me, the assassination of Bacco felt more disastrous -- in part because it was so sudden.

That's something I thought DRGIII did masterfully -- the death scene. He spends the entire chapter building up to the President's speech, you're all caught up in the emotion of it, you're looking forward to Nan having her moment in the spotlight -- and then it happens. Nan doesn't even have enough time to realize what's going on before she's gone. No goodbyes, no realizations, no sense of resolution, no catharsis. She has just enough time to realize she's bleeding, and then she's dead. It's heartbreaking in its brutal honesty.

So, to me, it felt much more sudden and unexpected, and therefore more disastrous.

Spoiler: Silent Weapons

Whereas, Silent Weapons had spent the entire book building up to the attack on the Bank of Orion, and there had already been one attempt on her life -- so by that point, everyone knew someone was gunning for her.

It was all about building tension and then releasing it, whereas Revelation and Dust was more about setting off a bomb when you least expect it.

I hear what you're saying. I will freely admit that my reaction is idiosyncratic and specific to me, so it doesn't necessarily reflect a shortcoming of DRGIII's writing.

Spoiler: a broad discussion of Silent Weapons

I think what David Mack did better than DRGIII, though, was conveying the sense of panic and despair after the assassination attempt. (To clarify, I am referring to the scene in Silent Weapons in the middle of the book, not the end. I definitely would not say that we got the same sense of panic at the end, mainly because the situation had resolved.) DRGIII gave us some of the despair, but it didn't quite do it for me.

I definitely hear what you're saying though.

 

[Sakrysta]

I agree that I felt more reading of Esperanza's death than I did Nan's. I think part of it is that I liked Nan more, and so when she hurt, I hurt. Whereas, when she died, I was just mad.

 

[Raisor]

Finished this today after putting it down for a few weeks.

Skipped the Kira section this read through, I'm going to read those chapters at a later date.

Not going to rehash what everyone else has said. Things picked up well enough after Bacco was assassinated. Turned into a good enough murder mystery. I also completely read the next book today but I will leave my thoughts about that book in the appropriate thread.

I do have to wonder why Nog is OBrien's assistant?

It was fine when he was a cadet, but he's been a commissioned officer for almost ten years now.

 

[DS9Continuing]

I do have to wonder why Nog is OBrien's assistant?

I didn't get that he was. I thought they were basically co-Chief Engineers.

Because of course strictly speaking Nog is very much O'Brien's senior in terms of rank (commissioned vs non-commissoned) even if he is very much junior in terms of experience. If anything O'Brien should be Nog's assistant, and it's only because of O'Brien's length of service and respect from the officers that he's as in as senior a position as he is.

.

 

[Raisor]

Nog was mentioned as the assistant Chief Engineer more than once in the novel.

 

[LutherSloan]

Just finished it the other day. Some random thoughts:

-Kind of surprised Bacco dies in this book after it seems like she just survived the events of another assassination (although I think it's been like 2 years later now or something).

-The Kira in the Bajoran past segments were pondering, I had to skip through them pretty fast. I think less time should have been spent here and more time with the reformed DS9 crew dealing with the new station/aftermath of the assassination.

-I guess we're heading toward some new thing where Sisko's daughter is some kind of new Emissary or hybrid between corporeal beings and the Prophets?

 

[sportzkid]

Sure the book will end up alright when viewed through the lense of the entire 5 part series, but I was definitely a little disappointed that it didn't stand on its own a little more WHILE contributing to the series. Felt like watching the first act of a tv episode, except in this case, we paid for the whole episode.

Not saying you had to pay off the whole thing right away, but there needed to be some smaller arcs that COULD be resolved as part of the overall narrative. This was just setup for later and really doesn't stand on its own very well, IMO. The Typhon Pact novels had their own story while contributing to the overall series, whereas this was just the warmup, but didn't do much on its own.

What story was just told? Don't list something that happened (the obvious event), but how would you define how this story breaks out? Was there a beginning, middle, end? Did we learn anything about anything? What was the obstacle that was overcome (or failed to overcome)? Stuff just was introduced or HAPPENED, and we'll presumably get the rest of the story later. All intro, no payoff.

Just finished the book the other day and pretty much agree with this review.

 

[Scout101]

Just want to point out that after 3 books, my review still works. R&D has been by far the weakest of the 3 so far, and the other two both had their own contained stories while contributing to the narrative. R&D still hangs out as incomplete.

Disappointingly, we've had more things happen at the station since, but no one is even picking up on the dangling threads that we thought were going to be a big payoff for the series.

To this point, could have had the President shot in the first 10 pages of book 2, and could have skipped this one altogether...

 

[DS9forever]

Does anybody think the information Odo got from meeting President Bacco might be followed up in The Poisoned Chalice or Peaceable Kingdoms ?

 

[TheUsualSuspect]

^ I've been assuming that that, along with a number of the other situations brought to light in Revelation and Dust, is intended to be a jumping off point for future DS9 novels, not a part of The Fall. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, however.

 

[Markonian]

If DS9 is not revived as a series of its own, we could wait a long time before seeing these storylines resolved.

 

[Paper Moon]

^ I've been assuming that that, along with a number of the other situations brought to light in Revelation and Dust, is intended to be a jumping off point for future DS9 novels, not a part of The Fall. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, however.

If DS9 is not revived as a series of its own, we could wait a long time before seeing these storylines resolved.

^^I agree with both of these thoughts.

On another note, the coverage of the fiftieth anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination really has me thinking about President Bacco's assassination in RaD. Well, thinking is probably too strong a term; more like feeling. I know DRGIII et al were conceiving of her assassination in the political terms of Archduke Franz Ferdinand's death, but, damn. The suddenness of both presidents' deaths, and, indeed, the death of the hope they represented for so many people...

 

[ronny]

I found it kind of meh. The Kira section just didn't do a lot for me and I was wondering if it was going to amount to much. It just didn't for me. And the DS9 part was for the most part predictable. While I didn't know specifically Nan was going to die we all knew something bad was going to happen, that was pretty telegraphed. And as far as the initial suspect being cleared, well, who didn't think that was going to happen, we have 4 more books to go after all. But I'm also wondering if the chip in her shoulder was supposed to fail causing confusion during the investigation.

I've only read the first 3 books so far and I liked books 2 and 3 a LOT more than this one. If you look at the the review threads ranking page you'll see this book ranks well below the rest of The Fall books out so far so that tells me most people feel the lesser book in the series so far.

 

[DS9forever]

I've come to see Revelation and Dust as something that was only really written to serve as a springboard for new DS9 novels.

 

[Mage]

I feel that DRGIII was given a very tough job with writing this novel. He was the one charged with kicking of a storyline set over 5 novels, plus setting up two more (the Kira situation, and the thing with Sisko's daughter). But since there will always be people who read this before reading any other Trek, or having not read the other novels in a while, he also need to backtrack and re-tell part of the story. That's simply a necessary evil. Unfortunatly, he got some back critique for that because they insist that every novel in the Fall should be seen as a seperate entity, even though the other novels published sofar have shown us that is clearly not the case.

 

[Scout101]

Eh, he's getting the criticism because the book just isn't very good. The other two books in the series have managed to tell their own story while contributing to the narrative; his just wandered, setting lots of stuff out there without doing much with them. And oddly (to this point), all the stuff he set up or left dangling, the other books in the series didn't pick back up, so it feels even stranger and more disconnected.

Lots of time wasted with flashbacks.
Kira stuff was lengthy, but no apparent payoff so far
Surprise ending wasn't even mentioned in the other books

Mostly, just no feeling that it was building to anything. Not a story in it's own right, just the first couple acts of a story. No payoff, no climax/conclusion, it just sorta WAS. If you can't resolve the big story (obviously not in an opening book), gotta introduce smaller things you can deal with. Didn't happen.

Aside from the Kira stuff being weird, it wasn't BAD, it just wasn't good. Without a conclusion, really wasn't much of anything...

As-is, it could have been the first 3 chapters of Crimson Shadow and we wouldn't have missed anything. President gets killed in opening of book 2, did you lose anything? That's really the knock; it wasn't necessary. Nothing would have been missed if book 2 spent a couple minutes telling you what you needed to know, or if all 4 books had been a couple pages longer...

 

[Zedferret]

Surely the setting up of new DS9 novels could have been done in new DS9 novels? If those threads set up in RaD are not resolved in Peaceable Kingdoms then the whole novel is basically a small short story about an assassination. I feel annoyed thet these plotlines were to be resolved over The Fall in general, let alone setting up future unconfirmed series. The other Fall books were fantastic, and self contained.

Keev/Kira?
Taran'atar?
Altek Dans?
Odo?

Any relevance to The Fall? We'll see in the last book.

 

[Paris]

I like to think that Revelations and Dust is kinda like two books in one. One part introduces the new DS9 and gives us some jumping off points for future DS9 tales, while the other part gives us the beginning of The Fall. Both worked together, but i can see it from the POV of others who felt this book didn't resolve enough. TPC does partically the same thing by changing Titan's status quo...but it wasn't as jarring as R&D. At least in my opinion...

 

[Scout101]

If it was just a jumping off point, that's fine, but it was sold as stand alone stories in an arc. And the other books have delivered on that while still contributing to the narrative. This one just didn't.

We got a lengthy depiction of the new station (fine), and the Bacco sub-plot. First one is just a description/intro, and the other one was just a few pages towards the end, and didn't resolve anything (not expected). This could have been worked into another book without losing anything.

The Kira part has yet to go anywhere, and didn't make a ton of sense on its own. If this part is INTENDED to go somewhere, it would have made just as much sense to have that be the first part of that NEXT book, and not just toss the intro scraps into this one. Nothing from this portion has had anything to do with the rest of the series to date, so why not hold it and do all that in one cohesive story later?

I think DRGIII just got the shaft here, and was given a bunch of scraps that needed to be worked in for later, without enough meat to hang a story on. I haven't had problems with his books, just not sure this was all his, or just something the editors wanted out there. Underwhelming mini-stories without resolution or payoff isn't something that's gonna be very popular, especially when the follow-up books don't continue the thread. Maybe it gets wrapped up at the end, but even then, that book will seem stronger but won't help save the first one...